The European Central Bank (ecb) has declared that Britain couldn’t join the euro even if it wanted to. What a slap in the face for an economy purported to be “tier one”—especially since countries such as Malta, Greece and Portugal somehow managed to qualify.

Antagonism toward Britain is growing on the Continent. Is Britain’s relationship with Europe doomed?

Following its rapid economic breakdown, the explosion in government borrowing and the drastic collapse of the pound, Britain no longer qualifies for entry into the eurozone. “Great Britain does not meet the entry criteria for the euro,” said Lorenzo Bini Smaghi, the ecb’s board member in charge of international affairs. “The public deficit will rise to around 6 percent (of gdp) in 2009 and even higher in 2010. Sterling’s exchange rate is not yet sufficiently stable,” he told Italy’s La Repubblica newspaper.

Bini Smaghi is probably too generous. Some experts predict the deficit will hit 10 percent, far above the 6 percent threshold that has set off currency crises in other countries.

Writing for the Telegraph, Ambrose Evans-Pritchard says it is possible that British debt auctions could fail this year, as the government attempts to borrow gargantuan amounts of money to fund economic stimulus packages. “Britain is expected to issue £146 billion this year, or 10 percent of gdp. While a £2 billion sale of gilts [bonds] went smoothly yesterday, the Debt Management Office has warned of possible trouble later this year.”

Fitch ratings agency predicts UK debt will jump from 44 percent of gross domestic product in 2007 to 68 percent by late 2010. According to Evans-Pritchard, that is “a staggering rise for a major country. It usually takes a war to do such damage.”

The UK’s economic breakdown has led to a radical turn of events. In Britain, Euroskeptics have long argued that joining the eurozone would hamper the UK economy. Now, that argument is irrelevant. Eurozone members may no longer want the UK to join.

As the Trumpet has said for years—and as Herbert W. Armstrong said for decades before us—the flirtation between Britain and the Continent was ill-conceived from the start and is destined to break up. Read “Europe to Britain: Let’s Part, Shall We?” to see Europe’s take on why Britain should be excluded from European integration.